Cards need kicking game to improve

The Cardinals played every other game down to the wire last year. There’s no reason to think things will be much different this season.

Team has few injury problems as season nears

Yet the guys who often decide which side of the wire the Cardinals tumble on are hardly mentioned.

Inside the team, though, the work of kicker Neil Rackers and punter Dirk Johnson is being scrutinized. They might be the difference in a run to the playoffs or finishing out of the money for the 10th straight season.

The Cards’ kicking fortunes have changed dramatically, for the worse, in the past two years.

As the Cardinals headed into 2006, they boasted two proven Pro Bowlers in Rackers and punter Scott Player.

But Player’s game declined; he was released a year ago. They picked up Mike Barr, who was inconsistent, then went to veteran Mitch Berger, who was an upgrade.

This year, they’re trying Johnson, a guy who’s had a circuitous career route.

He played defensive back at Northern Colorado and punted on the side. That meant practicing for about 15 minutes before the rest of the team took the field.

And that was about it.

He was mostly out of football between 1998-2001, working as a caddy, tending bar and parking cars, among other duties.

“I looked in the “help wanted.” You got to make ends meet,” he said.

Finally, he made it to NFL Europe, then won the battle for the punting job in Philadelphia in 2003, and lasted four years.

But he only punted in one game last year, as an injury fill-in for Chicago. So he’s trying to find a rhythm again.

“It’s been a really long layoff, having a year where you’re out of it,” he said.

Johnson struggled in the preseason opener vs. New Orleans, kicked much better at Kansas City and was OK at Oakland.

He’s not getting too comfortable. Another team could release a punter at any moment who could interest the Cardinals.

“You kind of live day to day,” he said. “I compete with myself and I’m pretty hard on myself. I want everything to be perfect.”

Coach Ken Whisenhunt said of Johnson: “I hope he’ll continue to improve and that will give us a better feel for where we are. I’m comfortable from what I’ve seen in practice that he is a good punter.”

Rackers’ story is much better known.

After an up-and-down stint in Cincinnati, he hooked on with the Cardinals and made a huge impact.

He made all but three kicks inside 50 yards in 2004 — and three of 50-plus in a win over Seattle. In 2005, he was merely the game’s best kicker, hitting an NFL-record 40 field goals, including 31 straight.

He sagged a bit in 2006 and even more so last year.

Among his struggles:

• He hit only 3 of 9 from beyond 50 yards, distances that used to be routine for him.

• One of those misses was a 55-yard potential game winner at Washington.

• He missed a 32-yarder that turned a win to a loss vs. San Francisco.

• He missed a late 47-yarder in a loss at Baltimore; the kick would have sent the game to overtime.

If Rackers had hit two of those three kicks, the Cardinals might have gone 10-6, the best mark in their 20 years in Arizona, instead of 8-8.

“It’s unfortunate but those are critical plays,” special-teams coach Kevin Spencer said. “We’ve got to make those plays, just like the offense and defense. If we don’t make plays, we don’t win games.”

Rackers has “got to hold up his end of the bargain,” said Spencer, who described the kicker’s 2007 season as “very disappointing.”

The Cardinals need to find out if that wondrous 2005 season was “an aberration or the real deal,” Spencer added.

“I’d like to think he could have a breakout year or certainly better than last year. We need him to be better this year.”

In training camp, Rackers said he worked on “slowing down a little bit, not being so quick into the ball.”

On long kicks, which tended to sail left last year, “I’ve got to hit more of those down the middle. If I slow down, I’ll be better off there.”

In his defense, Spencer pointed out Rackers was uncomfortable with Barr as the holder; Barr replaced Player as the punter and holder on place-kicks just before the season started.

“I don’t want to put it all on Mike, but for whatever reason, the chemistry never came about,” he said. “Neil would tell you he should have handled it better. But ... that was a factor.

“That’s not an excuse this year,” said Spencer, with Johnson holding for Rackers through the offseason and training camp,

Rackers has been solid this preseason except for a missed extra point and a botched kickoff that went out of bounds.

In training camp, Rackers missed only two of about 50 kicks in special-teams play.

“I’m confident his kicking will improve this year,” Whisenhunt said,

With about half the games hanging in the balance, the Cardinals will need that to be the case.